PB Opera to present its first new work, Enemies, A Love Story’

Thursday

Palm Beach Opera will mount its first new opera this weekend with an abridged production of a work-in-progress based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel Enemies, a Love Story.

The work will be performed by the company’s young artists at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Harriet Himmel Theater in CityPlace in West Palm Beach as part of its One Opera in One Hour series and again at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lighthouse Arts Center in Tequesta.

The opera was composed by Ben Moore and features a libretto by Nahma Sandrow. The story, which was adapted as a movie in 1989, is about Herman, a Jewish intellectual and Holocaust survivor who juggles two wives and a mistress in 1948 in New York.

"It’s an intrinsically dramatic story and something I feel connected to," Moore said. One of his aunts escaped Nazi Germany, while her extended family died in the Holocaust.

The opera has never had a full professional production. The first act was workshopped in January 2011 at the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York. A workshop of the complete opera was performed in October 2011 at Kentucky Opera in Louisville, this time with a full orchestra and the support of an Opera America grant.

Sandrow was attracted to the story, because it’s not a typical Singer ghost tale. "It’s about real people," she said. "It’s funny, but dark."

Neither Moore nor Sandrow has crafted an opera before. Moore’s songs have been sung and recorded by opera singers such as Susan Graham, Deborah Voigt and Nathan Gunn. Graham performed one of his songs as an encore at Palm Beach Opera’s 2006 gala recital. Sandrow wrote Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater, the definitive book on the subject, and the book for the musical Kuni-Leml.

The opera wouldn’t have been created without the support of Sandy Fisher, vice chairman of the Palm Beach Opera board. Fisher approached Moore about writing an opera in 2006, six years before he joined the board.

Fisher was disturbed by what he saw as the shortage of melodic, accessible operas being written today. "By and large, it’s all atonal," he said. "Ben is one of the few contemporary composers who writes beautiful, lyrical, melodic music that you want to hum when you leave the theater."

Fisher is a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera board and chairman of the board of the Richard Tucker Foundation. But the Enemies project is a personal one. He gave Moore a stipend to help him get started, paid for the rights to the book, financed a recording and arranged for a presentation at his apartment in New York.

At around the same time, a friend of Moore’s asked Daniel Biaggi, Palm Beach Opera’s general director, to take a look at Enemies. "I said I would, but that Palm Beach Opera is not the place to have a premiere," Biaggi said.

The company, which concentrates on safer mainstream repertoire, didn’t have a place for new work until it began experimenting with non-traditional material in its One Opera in One Hour series a couple of years ago.

Unaware of Fisher’s connection with the work, Biaggi asked Moore if he and Sandrow would condense the two-hour opera for the series. The abridged version will feature six characters instead of 11 and a chorus; a piano, violin and clarinet instead of a 15- to 25-piece chamber orchestra; and limited staging, such as lights, costumes and props. Moore and Sandrow flew down from New York to assist with rehearsals this week.

Fisher is delighted to reconnect with the opera. A number of opera companies are sending representatives to see the show. Down the road, Palm Beach Opera might collaborate with other companies to produce the work. "I don’t put it past us to turn this into the first American premiere we do," Biaggi said.